Sea Otter Plays Water Basketball to Ease the Pain Caused by Its Arthritis

Eddie is 15 years old, has been living at the Oregon Zoo since 2000

About a year ago, a sea otter living at the Oregon Zoo started experiencing some serious pains caused by arthritis.

Hopping to ease some of its suffering, the people in charge of looking after it taught Eddie how to play water basketball.

Apparently, the sea otter has taken quite a liking to this sport, and now spends considerable amounts of time dunking a ball through a plastic hoop installed by the zoo's staff in a training pool.

Sources report that Eddie's basketball routine worked wonders on the sea otter's joints, meaning that he now feels significantly less pain than he used to in the past.

“There aren’t many natural opportunities for Eddie to work those arthritic elbow joints, because sea otters don’t use their front limbs to swim—they swim by moving their back legs and flippers. So training him with the basketball hoop was a way to get Eddie using those front limbs more regularly,” zoo employee Jenny DeGroot told members of the press.